inside LG15

Submit Your Pilot!

After the incredible creativity and hard work from the producers of LG15: The Last, we are excited to announce LG15: TSIY2.  This is your chance to make the next LG15 series! Submit your ORIGINAL LG15 PILOT and get the chance to see your show be the featured content on LG15.com.

We have listened to the feedback from the community and looked back at the first TSIY and made some changes that we think will make TSIY2 even more successful and rewarding for both the producer of the chosen series and the community.

Sorry about the formal nature of the below, but we want to be very clear and precise about TSIY2. So here you go:

Submitting Your Pilot

Anyone may submit a pilot for TSIY2.  The pilots must be submitted between October 1, 2009 and October 15, 2009. Entries will be closed at 11:59 pm PST on October 15, 2009.

If the submission comes from more than one person, the team must appoint one person that will be the point person for the pilot (”Point Person” “You” “Your”). The Point Person must be over the age of 18 and legally able to enter into contracts.

The pilot must be derivative of the LG15 Universe by building upon the mythology of lonelygirl15, KateModern, LG15: The Resistance, LG15: The Last, and OpAphid.  For more information on LG15, please read the LGPedia, the #1 resource on all things LG15.

The pilot can either be Episode One of your proposed show or a Pilot Presentation, which gives a general idea of the look and feel of the proposed show.  It must be no more than 5 minutes in length.

Upload Your video to YouTube and send the link with Your social show treatment to pilot@lg15.com.  All pilots will be showcased on LG15.com and Inside LG15. UPDATE: Please Log In to the new LG15.com with your EQAL account which is the same email/password you used on the old LG15.com.  Create a profile page, connect your YouTube account, and import your pilot video to your profile page.  Flag it as “Cool” and we’ll feature your pilots on the new LG15 universe blog.

As part of Your pilot treatment, You must list the names of all people entitled to “Created By” and “Executive Producer” credit of Your pilot.

All video submissions must also include an 8-week social show treatment that outlines Your story, characters, and interactivity.  Your treatment must incorporate all aspects of a social show.  A social show is an experience on a website where a community participates in a specific entertainment property by viewing and discussing videos and other multimedia content, and by interacting with the characters through profile pages, commenting, and chat.

All submitted pilots will be covered by our Terms of Service.

The selected pilot will be announced on October 30, 2009.

If Your Pilot is Chosen:

If Your pilot is chosen to become TSIY2, it will become part of the LG15 canon.  You will be required to create one piece of content each day, Monday through Friday.  You will be required to produce at least 2 videos per week, plus additional content such as pictures, text blogs, and interactivity.

Prior to announcing the selected pilot, EQAL will reach out to the Point Person and inform them that they have been selected.

The Point Person will then enter into a contract with EQAL whereby EQAL will acquire the rights to Your show. The contract will be a standard contract with the following terms:

• You will be paid $5,000 for the rights to your show and to deliver the required materials.
• Once receiving the $5,000 you are responsible for producing the 8 week social show and for all costs of production associated with the production of Your show.
• All people listed as “Creators” and “Executive Producers” on the pilot submission will receive “Created by” and “Executive Producer” credit in the LGPedia.
• You will receive 50% of the net profits from all proceeds from the Your show.
• You must have name/likeness releases for all people appearing in your show and the rights to use all music in your show.
• You will deliver the first week of content to EQAL on January 4, 2010 and your show will start airing on January 11, 2010.
• You will be required to deliver each week’s content every Monday thereafter (e.g. Week 2 is due on January 11, 2010).
• Your show will be distributed on the LG15 YouTube account and on a custom show page subdomain of LG15.com (e.g. LG15.com/yourshow)

Marketing Your Show and Other Info.:

EQAL will market Your show by posting it to the LG15 YouTube account, showcasing each new video on the lonelygirl15 YouTube channel video player and the LG15: The Resistance YouTube channel, and sending out tweets when each new video is posted from the LG15 twitter account.

An EQAL producer may consult with you and your production team and review scripts and videos to ensure that your story is consistent with the LG15 Universe and uploaded in a timely manner for the benefit of the community.

Glenn Rubenstein, creator of OpAphid, will provide a vocal cameo as “Brother,” and/or assistance with effects and/or editing for 2-3 minutes of Tachyon-style footage if You should choose to include these characters in Your series.  Glenn may provide other help and/or assets to the winner at his sole discretion.

Good Luck!  We look forward to watching everyone’s pilots and seeing what the LG15 Community will do with the Breeniverse.

Hey Everyone,

As I mentioned in my last post, we have exciting news regarding the LG15 Universe.  As you know, back in the early days of lonelygirl15 a fan just like you created an incredible LG15 spin-off called OpAphid.  The OpAphid ARG added a dark and mysterious depth to the LG15 franchise and we were incredibly excited to see what someone could do with very few resources and a lot of talent and hard work.  It truly inspired us and showed the potential of “social entertainment.”  It’s what led us to found EQAL.  We reached out and incorporated OpAphid in the LG15 narrative and hired its creator, Glenn Rubenstein, as a writer on lonelygirl15.  For months, the OpAphid ARG was interwoven with lonelygirl15 and the two series elevated the franchise to its heights in terms of both audience and engagement.  Unfortunately, in 2007 we parted ways with Glenn and the status of OpAphid has remained uncertain ever since.

Well, all of that is now behind us.  I’m excited to announce that the rift in the LG15 Universe has been mended.  OpAphid, Tachyon, Brother, and the entire OpAphid ARG is now officially part of the LG15 Universe canon.  Yup, you heard me right.  We’ll be featuring all of the OpAphid videos in their own section of the the new LG15.com just like lonelygirl15, KateModern, LG15: The Resistance, and LG15: The Last.  We hope this will be the beginning of a newly invigorated and ever evolving LG15 Universe.

But that’s not all.  To commemorate this momentous event we’re launching LG15: TSIY2.  In this second iteration of TSIY, you can tap into the entire OpAphid back-story and characters along with the LG15 mythology you all know and love.  In fact, Glenn Rubenstein will join the producers at EQAL as a judge determining the winner of LG15: TSIY2 and will provide some audiovisual assets to the winner if they choose to incorporate OpAphid characters in their show (details in the official rules).

We’ll post official rules and more information about TSIY2 in the very near future.

Hey Everyone,

I received several emails from members of the LG15 community asking that we “turn on posting” in the old phpBB lonelygirl15 forum.  Thanks for emailing, I didn’t know that this was something you wanted and I appreciate your feedback.  It’s actually good timing because we have some exciting announcements about LG15 coming very soon.  It’s been a long and bumpy road for all of us, but I hope that you can open up your hearts and give LG15 a chance to win you back.  I miss the old days just like you and I hope this community can flourish again.

Cutting to the chase, we are happy to turn on the phpBB forum for you guys. We just changed the settings so you should be able to login and post right now.  Unfortunately, we’re getting  SQL errors from new user registration, so we can’t turn that feature on.  The old forum is on our old servers and we don’t have the resources to support those servers or code.  This was why we turned the forum off in the first place, but I understand your desire to continue using it and we’re happy to provide the functionality that is currently available.

I also want you to know that I appreciate your concerns and I have no problem admitting my mistakes.  Inside the company we encourage each other to talk openly about our mistakes so that we can analyze them, learn from them, and do a better job the second time around.  So, I’m happy to admit to my mistakes publicly.  Here you go:

1. We shouldn’t have launched such an immature software product on LG15.com unless we had the resources to add features and upgrade it.  Unfortunately we immediately had to work on Harper’s and that work didn’t transfer back to LG15 “automatically” like I wanted it to.  I’m sorry.
2. We shouldn’t have shut down the phpBB forum considering that the new software wasn’t up to par.  I’m sorry.
3. We should be better about communicating with you guys, our first and most loyal fans.  Again, I’m sorry.

Here is our plan for LG15 going forward.  It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we can do given our resources.  I hope these actions help move us towards mending this broken community.

1. We will be re-launching LG15.com on the newest version of our servers and software within the next couple months.  It will feature new forums, profile pages, and publishing just like you’ve experienced on Harper’s Globe and Level 26.  It will continue to be upgraded along with all of our other websites.  Unfortunately because of changes to the underlying database structure we will NOT be able to port user data from the current LG15 site.  This means that comments on “LG15: The Resistance” and “LG15: The Last,” discussion threads in the new Resistance/Last forums, and photos/board posts on profile pages WILL NOT be integrated seamlessly on the new site.  You WILL be able to login to the new site with your same email/password just like you can across all EQAL sites, and create new profile pages and connect your YouTube, Twitter, and FB accounts.  This was not an easy decision.  However, we felt that it was better to get a new site up rather than continue “indefinitely” on the old software.
2. When we launch the new site, we’ll preserve the current LG15 site in an “archived” state, and at some point in the future we will integrate it into the new site.  This includes the “lonelygirl15,” “KateModern,” “LG15: The Resistance,” and “LG15: The Last” comments/profiles/forums/etc.  For the sake of clarity, ALL LG15 CONTENT that is currently online will stay online and remain visible, this includes the newly reopened phpBB forum.
3. Greg and I are going to make a concerted effort to be better about communicating with you guys about what we’re doing with LG15.  We aren’t perfect and sometimes we get incredibly busy with everything that we are doing with EQAL, but we understand the need for better communication and will do a better job.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we have some exciting announcements about the LG15 Universe coming out really soon.  I know that the lonelygirl15 community is what got us our start and I intend on helping it to grow over time.  It will take some time, and I know it’s been a rocky path, but hopefully you can give us a chance.  Trust me, the past few years have not been easy for us either.  It’s difficult because we can’t always tell you what’s going on internally, but we have been working like maniacs over the past few years to help turn this hobby into an industry so that all independent content creators like ourselves will benefit.

Thanks.

M